Wild Accusations: 2016 World Cup Of Hockey Predictions

On March 2nd, the eight teams of the 2016 World Cup announced their initial 16-man rosters, which means we now know, at least partially, who will be suiting up for Canada, the Czech Republic, Team Europe, Finland, Team North America, Russia, Sweden and , the USA this September.

If you’re not familiar with the format, the teams representing the countries are pretty self-explanatory; Canadians will play for Canada, etc. But for Team Europe and Team North America, the set-up is a little different.

Team Europe will be composed of all the best players whose country is not already represented. So you get Anze Kopitar from Slovenia and Zdeno Chara from Slovakia—along with others—all forming a team. Why? Because if Slovenia itself put a team in the World Cup, it would get crushed. So the organizers decided that instead of sending sacrificial lambs to slaughter, they’d make an All-Star team from all the countries that can’t supply a decent enough roster on their own.

Team North America will consist of the best under-23-years-of-age players on the continent. Why? Basically because Canada has so many good players, the U-23s would be left of, and the organizers want to make money off of Connor McDavid. And don’t kid yourself, it is totally because of the talent pool in Canada. If there was no Team North America, the US kids would be on the US team. In fact, I think the people who should be most ticked off is the group managing Team USA, because their roster is significantly hindered by not having the U-23 Americans on the team.

Anyways, without getting into how dumb a concept those two teams are (Team Europe is not as bad a thought as Team U-23, but it’s still silly), let’s take a look at the rosters and see if we can make any early predictions about September’s tournament.

Goaltenders

Like I said earlier, a couple American forwards on the North American team would easily be on team USA if the rules allowed, and I think they’d be important members of the team. Already, Gaudreau is better than Pacioretty, Stepan and Abdelkader, probably better than Wheeler, and closing in on Oshie; and Larkin and Eichel are better than Abdelkader and Stepan, and I’d take them over Wheeler, though Wheeler has NHL strength over them.

Saad and Miller wouldn’t make Team USA, I don’t think, but if this was an Olympic year and they were named to the squad, I wouldn’t be shocked.

No doubt Dean Lombardi and Paul Holmgren are fuming at the fact they these kids aren’t even an option for them. USA has a much bigger gripe than Canada over not being allowed to have these kids on the team.

Prediction #2: Team North America is going to get pumped

Ok, so maybe a bit of a contradiction to say that the USA would love to have some of the U-23s on their team, and then say that those U-23s are going to get pumped in the tournament, but looking at their roster, overall, there’s just not enough depth compared to the other squads.

Yes, North America has a lot of exciting, young talent. And yes, a lot of these players, if not all of them, will someday represent their countries, but right now, how are you going to put those four defensemen up against the D of the other teams and say they’ll come out on top? I think NA will hold up against the Czechs and the Fins, but I don’t see them skating with the other teams. They’ll be exciting, but a lot of times exciting hockey ends up being losing hockey.

Anyways, if you look at the 16 guys on each of those rosters, top to bottom they’re just stronger than everyone else. Every single players is, if not a superstar, a solid, solid, hockey player. Yeah the Americans are throwing Pat Kane over the boards, which is awesome, but they’re also coming at you with Justin Abdelkader. I mean, Abdelkader has 33 points this season, and 165 points in 462 games over his NHL career. The closest Forward to Abdelkader on Team Canada in terms of games played is Tyler Seguin at 420 games., but he’s tallied 350 points, including 68 this year.

And, their D-cores. Wow. That’s all I have to say. Just, wow.

Since everyone in these tournaments—World Cups, Olympics—are the best of the best, the tournament is usually decided by the worst player on the roster. So yes, technically, those players have yet to be named; however, looking at the initial rosters, the worst players on Sweden and Canada could be the best players on the other teams, so that’s why you have to give them the best odds at being in the finals.

Prediction #4: Connor McDavid will lead the tournament in scoring

Because why not? Noth America is not going to win a lot of games, but they’re going to score a lot of goals, and someone has got to do the scoring, so to-hell-with-it, I’m predicting McJesus will get the job done. I mean, the kid is a freak; why not have a tourney, Connor? Show Team Canada what they’re missing.